All About Who Can Run and What Disqualifies a Candidate for President of The United States 

According to the United States Constitution, a person must meet the following qualifications to serve as President of the United States:

Be a natural-born citizen of the United States

Be at least 35 years old

Have been a resident of the United States for at least 14 years

Additionally, there are some circumstances that could disqualify a person from serving as President:

 

Criminal Conviction: If a person has been convicted of a felony, they may be disqualified from running for President, depending on the nature of the offense.

Impeachment and Removal from Office: A President who has been impeached and removed from office by Congress may be disqualified from running for the presidency again.

Mental or Physical Incapacity: A person who is mentally or physically incapacitated to the point that they cannot perform the duties of the presidency may be disqualified from serving.

It is worth noting that some of these disqualifications are subject to interpretation, and there could be legal challenges if someone tries to disqualify a candidate based on these grounds.

 

What would be the nature of the offense

The Constitution does not specify what kind of offense would disqualify a person from running for President. However, legal experts generally agree that a felony conviction, particularly one related to dishonesty or breach of trust, would likely be the type of offense that would disqualify a candidate from running for President.

 

In addition, some states may have their own laws regarding eligibility for public office, which could include specific disqualifications for certain types of criminal offenses. It's important to note that a person is not automatically disqualified from running for President simply because they have been convicted of a crime. The disqualification would depend on the nature of the offense and whether it meets the criteria for disqualification under the Constitution and applicable laws.

 

Who would decide that?

The decision on whether a person is qualified to run for President ultimately rests with the American people and the electoral process. The Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements for the presidency, and it is up to the voters to decide whether a candidate meets those requirements and is qualified to serve as President.

 

If there is a dispute about a candidate's eligibility, it may be litigated in the courts, and ultimately, the Supreme Court of the United States could make a final determination. However, the decision of the Supreme Court would be based on the interpretation of the Constitution and applicable laws, rather than on personal or political considerations.

 



Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

We call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.


AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity, as shown by extensive research[1] and acknowledged by top AI labs.[2] As stated in the widely-endorsed Asilomar AI Principles,  Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources. Unfortunately, this level of planning and management is not happening, even though recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control.

Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks,[3] and we must ask ourselves: Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization? Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders. Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable. This confidence must be well justified and increase with the magnitude of a system's potential effects. OpenAI's recent statement regarding artificial general intelligence, states that "At some point, it may be important to get independent review before starting to train future systems, and for the most advanced efforts to agree to limit the rate of growth of compute used for creating new models." We agree. That point is now.

Therefore, we call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4. This pause should be public and verifiable, and include all key actors. If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium.

AI labs and independent experts should use this pause to jointly develop and implement a set of shared safety protocols for advanced AI design and development that are rigorously audited and overseen by independent outside experts. These protocols should ensure that systems adhering to them are safe beyond a reasonable doubt.[4] This does not mean a pause on AI development in general, merely a stepping back from the dangerous race to ever-larger unpredictable black-box models with emergent capabilities.

AI research and development should be refocused on making today's powerful, state-of-the-art systems more accurate, safe, interpretable, transparent, robust, aligned, trustworthy, and loyal.

In parallel, AI developers must work with policymakers to dramatically accelerate development of robust AI governance systems. These should at a minimum include: new and capable regulatory authorities dedicated to AI; oversight and tracking of highly capable AI systems and large pools of computational capability; provenance and watermarking systems to help distinguish real from synthetic and to track model leaks; a robust auditing and certification ecosystem; liability for AI-caused harm; robust public funding for technical AI safety research; and well-resourced institutions for coping with the dramatic economic and political disruptions (especially to democracy) that AI will cause.

Humanity can enjoy a flourishing future with AI. Having succeeded in creating powerful AI systems, we can now enjoy an "AI summer" in which we reap the rewards, engineer these systems for the clear benefit of all, and give society a chance to adapt. Society has hit pause on other technologies with potentially catastrophic effects on society.[5]  We can do so here. Let's enjoy a long AI summer, not rush unprepared into a fall.